Dear Natasha and Patience, we see you, keep going

Dear first daughters. My name is Yusuf Serunkuma. I am an academic based at Makerere University, and a writer with this newspaper.

I am writing to you publicly, not only because it is the only way available to me, but also because while you may have tried to keep a ‘low-low’ public life (as we say in the streets), you are using your closeness to power a little more differently from what we have become used to.

You appear to be responding to the cries of the country. (By that statement alone, you notice I don’t know so much, but I am the type who finds contentment in small things). Thus, I am also writing to both of you because I intend to appreciate your subtle manoeuvres.

That is why I would prefer that the Ugandan public is persuaded to see your otherwise ‘subversive’ initiatives as exceptions from an otherwise loathed family. I also intend to make a big ask on behalf of the public.

First, I appreciate the problems that come with being members of a prominent family – especially one that is active and whose actions affect millions of Ugandans in major ways. Being a member of this type of family, even when you have no say in the decisions taken, we only see you as a collective.

Good decisions might be a blessing to all of the family, just as the bad ones are a curse. (I am sure you are quietly hurting from the actions and public statements of some members of your family, and cannot openly rebuke them. I feel your pain).

Secondly, my sense is that you also feel the urgency of the time; that the old man is tired and frail and perhaps needs not carry on any further. The entire country feels this way. We are all nervous.

We are on the edge, worried that while still in office, the old man might fail to wake up one day. (God forbid.) This will throw the country in absolute pandemonium. I am being candid with you, dear Natasha and Patience, because I am confident I am speaking to like-minds.

I am inspired to speak to you because of your careers and passions. My position is that folks in the performing industry and the humanities more generally – be they writers or people in the pastoral business – tend to appreciate life openly and are often forthright.

You might have forgotten, Mrs Karugire, but when you published you children’s books, Nzima and Njunju, and A Step Ahead in the Game, both with Fountain Publishers in the late 2000s, I was the editor there.

We tried to promote your books with journalists Maurice Mugisha and the late Rosemary Nankabirwa, and the legendary Bbale Francis. Looking back now, I see a writer in you – and writers tend to be more sober and humbler. And for Patience, who is in the pastoral business, that, too, is the world of performing arts.

It thrives on oratory power, eloquence, close reading of scripture, stage presence, and a good sense of the human condition. Unless of course, the pastor chooses to be boring, which I guess you aren’t. I am concluding, therefore, that your investment in the performing world and humanities has given you a different perspective of the world and the working of your paterfamilias, Yoweri Museveni.

I am confident Natasha is humming to herself, ‘Even the best dancer exits the stage,’ and Pastor Patience endlessly repeating the verses, “Every soul shall taste death,” and “After 75, a man has to prepare for meeting his Creator.”

Not too long, dear Natasha, you decided to record a video of yourself profusely, endlessly thanking your parents for the work they have done for the country. You would have chosen to thank them these many times without recording it.

You would have recorded and left this video on your phone as there are many others you haven’t shared with us. Your parents looked not just old in that video, but decrepit – with all the ruins and ruthlessness of old age wrinkling their once fine skin. Even when you noticed this, you went ahead and shared that video with the world.

As a reader, I felt you wanted to talk to the country. You sought to alert the country that these two people, whom you so dearly love, are old and tired, and you were thanking them on our behalf. I read the message, and I hope the country did too.

Dear Patience, I will say the same to you. You had the power to invite your parents to your church and ask them to ask for forgiveness. Because the Lord is everywhere. You had the choice to go to their house and hold their hands in prayer and quest for forgiveness.

But you brought them to a public square and challenged them to read out an apology to especially the people of Buganda. It was poorly-timed and terribly-scripted but it was a good sign. Ladies, this is absolute subversive behaviour.

We see you. If you didn’t speak Runyankore, your elder brother (Uncle Saleh called him a Gen Z! …) after reading this explainer, would have wished to take you to his basement for lessons. But I bet you speak better Runyankore than he does.

Look, I might not know what your calculations are in these subtle, sneaky moves. But if you mean what I have written above, you better move first and more assertively to the next move. To paraphrase the poet, Andrew Marvel, “Time’s winged chariot is hurrying near, so fast.”

There is not much time left. I know your positions in the family make it difficult to go the extra mile. Being women with a patriarchal dad who never thought you too needed military training nor would ever be leaders (he didn’t bother to prepare you for any of these), and with husbands who aren’t just dangerously ambitious (especially, you, Patience), but heavily entangled in your father’s businesses, makes your positions even more complex.

But being the soberest in this entire family – the artistes and folks invested in the humanities – we see your manoeuvres in this absolutely heavy truck. Don’t get your feet off those gas pedals. Indeed, as first daughters, you have immense power.

Boldly, internally, plead with your old man, argue with him, warn him about the loud singing vultures around him, and beg him to give Uganda a chance while he still can. Time is running fast. Natasha, remind him, nicely, through the best images you can draw about how every show has to come to an end.

Pastor Patience, the old man will believe you when you tell him “a good name is better than great riches.”

There is still a window – it is fast closing though – for the old man to redeem himself and enter the ranks of a statesman. He doesn’t have to die in office. We don’t have to go through the 2026 election at all.

Or with him as one of the candidates. As he sought for forgiveness, the country will definitely forgive him.

Sincerely, Yusuf.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.